Crunch&Sip peels back the facts on fruit snacks
Following a recent audit, we are cautioning parents not to assume that packaged snacks labelled as ‘fruit' are healthy options for their children, with some containing as much sugar as a lolly bag.
Of the 56 packaged fruit snacks available in two major supermarket chains in Australia, more than two-thirds (68%) were found to contain unacceptable levels of sugar, with many products hiding added sugars behind healthy-sounding names such as fruit juice concentrate or honey. Unfortunately almost half of the "fruit snack" products we looked at contained at least 50% sugar!
Misleading marketing a main ingredient
While parents and carers are doing their best to provide healthy options in their children's lunchboxes, food manufacturers are letting them down by using sneaky marketing tactics, including imagery of fruit on their packaging, the use of words like ‘natural' and ‘fruit' within their brand and product name, and positioning their products in the health food aisles of supermarkets.
Despite their healthy sounding names, ingredients such as fruit paste, concentrated puree, fruit juice concentrate, and corn syrup are just added sugar, and another sneaky way that brands use a health halo to market their products to parents. Sugars found naturally in snacks like plain yoghurt and whole fruit come with the goodness of protein, calcium and fibre so there's no need to avoid these types of foods, it's added sugars that people need to be on the lookout for.
Sugar crashes in the classroom
It is also important to note that these high sugar snacks impact kids health, as well as their ability to perform in school. Sugary foods can cause energy crashes, which in school usually occurs just after recess or lunch time, affecting classroom learning.
While dietary fibre found in whole fruit slows down digestion, helping to stabilise blood sugar levels and avoid the sugar crash, none of the packaged fruit snacks in our audit met the recommended minimum of 3g dietary fibre per serving, which would help to do this.
Top tips to avoid the sugary snacks at the shops
- Learn how to decode the nutrition labels to give you confidence when choosing and comparing products.
- Keep the Crunch&Sip wallet card handy when at the supermarket to help make decisions on the best products to buy
- Check out Crunch&Sip's healthy snacks recipes for healthy lunchbox options here